Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has denounced Israel's "savage massacres" of Palestinians and called for an Israeli pullout from occupied Arab lands and for the return home of Palestinian refugees, Beirut papers said Tuesday.

"The savage massacres committee by Israel against the Palestinian people ... are an extension of the crime it committed in 1948" when the Jewish state was created, Lahoud was quoted as saying.

"A just and comprehensive peace based on Israel's complete withdrawal from occupied Arab lands and the return home of Palestinian refugees is the principal solution to all the problems," he said.

Lahoud said "Israel bears the main responsibility in obstructing this solution."

House Speaker Nabih Berri called on Arab countries "to sever all diplomatic relations with Israel and all kinds of normalization immediately."

"The renewed Israeli crimes aim at emptying Jerusalem from its Arab residents and cancel its Arab, Muslim and Christian face in order to judaize it," he said.

He said "once again the Israeli crimes committed on occupied Arab lands against Palestinian civilians, including children, women and elderly, prove that Israel represents the ugliest image of state terrorism."

He denounced "these new crimes of the Israeli regular army which carries out war operations, using helicopters and live ammunition, to strike unarmed civilian targets."

He also lashed out at "the terrorist Sharon, leader of the Israeli opposition who with the approval and protection of the Israeli government, has desecrated the al-Aqsa mosque."

Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Jerusalem mosque compound on Thursday sparked a wave of violence between the Palestinians and the Israeli army that left more than 50 people killed, most of them Palestinians.